Prior to starting the assignment I was quite nervous due to the rapid change and unpredictability of the strict requirements. I feel as if I would’ve taken it lighter, if this would’ve been told to all students since it would’ve been expected. As a student who has had to write various essays in a short period of time, and as someone who regularly times herself this was not a difficult task. I already knew the prompt, knew what to expect and had a general idea as to what I wanted to include. Not only was I prepared prompt wise,I had re-read the stories to be clear on the points that I wanted to make. I feel as the freeway/liberty that we had during the in-class writing made it much easier. Reason being that we didn’t need to and weren’t expected to meet a word count or have a strict format. This allowed me to feel comfortable enough to expand on my thoughts, and put it all on paper without having to feel the pressure of everything having to be a certain way. Having the expectation of the essay be lowered allowed me to have the “freeway” of leaving some thoughts open to change. As we didn’t need to include quotes since we weren’t allowed to have any open book, it made the process much easier and faster. I  dwell the majority of the time writing essays, looking for evidence that fits perfectly. Once professors drop the high expectation of evidence in essays and give more leeway, students (like myself) are able to expand their points without being afraid of sounding repetitive or like they are simply paraphrasing what the quote is already explaining. Having certain requirements on me forces me to struggle and add things that aren’t necessary to their essays, in return having a whole section in the essay that doesn’t fit or doesn’t make sense. I felt that this allowed me to write to show off what I know, instead of writing to satisfy the requirement. I would not mind doing this again, (not for the research paper, I need the outside sources with me) for other assignments. Not to mention I was able to simply write something in class and then leave without having to do anything else. While not having to worry about anything else in regards to the essay once I get home, that’s always a plus. Overall, this exercise taught me to not underestimate myself and that my competitive self-timing essays are working.